What happens when sheep aren't sheared

I am the evangelical crackhead right

What a shame! Two month old has abortion! Ban all abortions!

Surgeons operated on a 2-month-old Pakistani girl Tuesday to remove two fetuses that had grown inside her while she was still in her mother's womb, a doctor said.

Baby killers!

[/sarc]

Christ weeps for those of us who have to listen to the Christian(TM) extreme right

"You guys have become the Jews of the 21st century." Michael Horowitz, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington, about today's American Christians(TM)

War on Christians Is Alleged

A bunch of Christian(TM) crackheads got together this week to whine and cry about how they are persecuted in America. The quote by Horowitz makes a mockery of the Holocaust and a mockery of war in general. Dead soldiers spin in their graves. Here's a fun fact about these evangelical crackheads:

White evangelicals make up about one-quarter of the U.S. population, and 85 percent of Americans identify themselves as Christians. But three-quarters of evangelicals believe they are a minority under siege and nearly half believe they are looked down upon by most of their fellow citizens, according to a 2004 poll.

I'm serious about the lion feedings. You people need to be taught what persecution really is. Your whining and crying is leading sane people to really become disgusted with Christianity in general, like you are trying to make people want to persecute you. Are you trying to bring violence upon yourselves? You are so pumped about the coming apocalypse that you are trying to hasten it by forcing persecution. You are succeeding in making us roll our eyes at you, you crybabies. Real Christians have distanced themselves from you. You do not represent Christ; you represent hatred and bigotry. That is not Christianity.

Ok, so I'm not really serious about the lion feedings, but I might pay to watch Tom DeLay or John Cornyn get chased around RFK by lions for awhile.

To you "Christians" who claim persecution, verily I say unto you, take your false trademark religion and shove it up @$#%!% Until you start reading your Bibles and learning what real Christianity is, no one is going to take you seriously, and they are going to keep barring you from participating in things, not because of your beliefs, but because you are simply annoying!

Don't Take the Senator Out to the Ballgame

I love having the opportunity to write about baseball on this political/cultural/everything-but- the-kitchen-sink blog, and WaPo has an article today that allows me to do just that. As anyone who lives in the DC Metropolitan area and glances at a newspaper now and then knows, the Washington Nationals haven't exactly had a smooth transition into their new city. Add another problem to their plate, a problem that is just one of many waves that Criminal Abramoff has caused with his crooked relationships. See, last year, the Nats were a big hit on Capitol Hill and provided lobbyists with another bribe gift to give recipients in Congress. This year, the threat is that they will no longer be allowed to accept sports tickets as bribes gifts.

While I am glad that Abramoff was caught and that Congress is working on lobby reform, some of the proposals to "fix" the problem will restrict members of Congress from doing their jobs, that being representing the people, for anyone who has forgotten. However, attending sporting events isn't necessary to represent the people, so even if baseball takes a hit, it's worth the reform effort.

I guess the Nats will just have to make up the sales with us common folk, the ones who'll flock to games with discount specials and promotional giveaways.

Sieg Heil, Jesus

Those lion feedings are looking better and better these days.

Georgia Considers Bible as Textbook

Georgia would become the first to require its Department of Education to put in place a curriculum to teach the history and literature of the Bible. Schools would use the book itself as the classroom textbook. Specifically the bill would establish electives on both the New and Old Testaments.

It has overwhelmingly passed both chambers, but needs a final vote on a minor House change. The vote is expected as early as Monday. If it passes, the state's Department of Education has a year to establish Bible elective courses in the curriculum.

While I have no problem with teaching the Bible, which is firmly entrenched in literature and life, I do have a problem with it being mandated by the state. Funny how the right loves all walls except Mr. Jefferson's wall.

Progressive Service Announcement

From David Swanson:

I'd like to invite you to join us for a Progressive Democrats of America (PDA) "Briefing" about PDA and its activities on Tuesday, March 28 from 5:30 to 7:30pm at Busboys and Poets on 14th and V, NW, Washington, D.C.

As you may know, PDA is a new organization dedicated to transforming the Democratic Party into a force for social justice, environmental protection and true democracy. We expect to accomplish this admittedly ambitious goal over time, with an "inside/outside" strategy that builds the progressive base, making it possible for Democrats to be able to move in a progressive direction and win general elections. In 18 months PDA has grown to 90 chapters and over 50,000 on its e-mail list. Through alliances with other organizations, PDA's reach exceeds 300,000 activists nationwide. Our active Advisory Board includes Cindy Sheehan and six members of Congress (John Conyers, Barbara Lee, Lynn Woolsey, Maxine Waters, Raul Grijalva and Diane Watson.)

Our purpose on March 28 will be to bring together potential financial supporters and political allies - and to provide them with a concise presentation of PDA.

Greg Moore, PDA Board Chair Mimi Kennedy and I will provide a systematic overview of PDA in fifteen minutes or so. We may also show a short video. PDA Director Tim Carpenter and Political Director Kevin Spidel (who will be freshly returned from a stint as campaign manager for the infamous Christine Cegelis Democratic primary campaign in Illiniois!) will provide the latest information.

We will also hear opinions and perspectives on PDA and its strategy from MD State Democratic Party Chair Terry Lierman, Congressional Progressive Caucus Executive Director Bill Goold, House Judiciary Committee Attorney Perry Applebaum, and Diane Watson's Chief of Staff Jim Clark - all of whom have worked closely with PDA over the past 18 months. We may have a Member of Congress as well.

Bus Boy's proprietor, Andy Shallal, a PDA supporter, will be there to welcome us and participate.

Please consider joining us on March 28. If you would like to invite others, please do.

A brief reflection on life

One of the strangest customs the Western world (and some others) has is the wake/viewing. I've never really thought about it before these past couple of days, but it is really bizarre to stand in front of a deceased body and accept sympathies of people you know and don't know, especially when the thing lasts for four hours and you're irritated to the point where you kind of forget your grief for awhile.

The funeral business is tacky. Here we have the most difficult struggle in human existence - death - and we've got people trying to make money by selling memorial videos, whole room funerals, half rooms, charging extra for hair dye, cheesy organ music, driving the shiny white hearse...the whole thing would be a circus if it weren't so damn sad. Maybe they're trying to get your mind off the reason why you go to funerals. Maybe they think it's better if you don't have time to reflect and contemplate death. But they probably are just so desensitized to death that they don't remember that grieving is real.

When a relative dies, you think about these things. It reminds you that life is too short for petty arguments and malicious behavior towards others. At least, it should, if you have a soul and a moral conscience. I attended only the fourth funeral of my life today, and as sad as it was that my grandmother passed on, it was even sadder to think about what her son and daughter are going through, losing their last parent and becoming 50 year old orphans. She had a lengthy procession and was surrounded by so many friends and family that it made me realize what a great life she must have had to be loved like that. I hope when it's my time my family has to order the large room instead of the half room - I think that is all you can ask for in life.

Please, go out and celebrate life today. You don't get much of it.

Conservatives are scared and whiny

For lack of anything better to post, and wanting to take an easy stab at the right, I present:

How to spot a baby conservative
Whiny children, claims a new study, tend to grow up rigid and traditional.

Remember the whiny, insecure kid in nursery school, the one who always thought everyone was out to get him, and was always running to the teacher with complaints? Chances are he grew up to be a conservative.

In the 1960s Jack Block and his wife and fellow professor Jeanne Block (now deceased) began tracking more than 100 nursery school kids as part of a general study of personality. The kids' personalities were rated at the time by teachers and assistants who had known them for months. There's no reason to think political bias skewed the ratings — the investigators were not looking at political orientation back then. Even if they had been, it's unlikely that 3- and 4-year-olds would have had much idea about their political leanings.

A few decades later, Block followed up with more surveys, looking again at personality, and this time at politics, too. The whiny kids tended to grow up conservative, and turned into rigid young adults who hewed closely to traditional gender roles and were uncomfortable with ambiguity.

The confident kids turned out liberal and were still hanging loose, turning into bright, non-conforming adults with wide interests. The girls were still outgoing, but the young men tended to turn a little introspective.

This is no surprise. Cons think everyone is out to get them - terrorists, muggers, gays, immigrants, communists, Muslims, murderers, thieves, liberals, black people... That's why they have to carry guns and ban everything they don't like.

Of course, the study is "biased" because it portrays cons in a negative light. [rolls eyes]

Best campaign website ever

Republican Tim Anderson for Congress

Protecting our senior and our kids

I am running for the Minnesota 5th district because I want to protect senior citizens and children. To do this I will push congress pass a 10 year mandatory minimum for any one convicted of a violent crime against a senior or a kid.

Tax Cuts for the people who VOTE.

Every one that vote would see a 2 percent cut in their tax rate.

Tax cuts to save the Ford Ranger and it St Paul factory.

I will vote to make the Bush tax cuts permanent

The bush tax cut have created a great deal of jobs here in 5th district and in the United States over all.

To not make these tax cut permanent would be one of the biggest tax increases ever. This would kill jobs and hurt Minnesota families and business. It would reinstate the marriage tax penalty.

to contact our office please call 612.327.4152 or Email

Cuz readin' an' writin' just ain't important!

It looks even better on his plain white website with black Times New Roman font. (Yep, folks, this is real.)

In case you hadn't heard

The Dubai government is trying to buy US weapons plants. Do we really want a foreign government owning our weapons facilities? I don't, especially when we have pissed off that part of the world. Maybe all of these issues will teach that dictatorship to privatize. Foreign companies are a completely different story than foreign governments.

It'll be interesting to see if this goes the way of the port deal.

Afghanistan - a success in democracy building

[/sarc]

Yeah, we all know what a farce Afghan "democracy" is, how it is still a haven for Islamic fundamentalism and how outside of Kabul, it is perpetually stuck in the seventh century. And here we have an Afghan Christian who is facing the death penalty for what? For converting to Christianity. How is it that there is any wonder why negative perceptions of Islam continue to increase? Shariah law is being interpreted to mean the government should kill a guy for his religious beliefs. Maybe he finds something appealling in the Christian idea of redemption. Maybe he is disgusted by how violent Islam in general has become. Maybe he just feels spiritually more comfortable with Christianity. Who knows? Regardless, if Karzai doesn't pardon this guy, he is no better than the mullahs in Iran.

For all of the American Christian(TM) crackheads out there, THIS is what persecution is, not saying Happy Holidays during the December holiday season.

Happy Birthday, Iraq War! Iran, you're next!

Yes, I am posting on a Saturday night, but yesterday was Paddy's Day and I'm not much in the mood for socializing this evening, plus the Japan-Korea semi-final game is on right now. Commie Cuba defeated the bombers on the Dominican team earlier today to move into the finals.

I guess we just passed the three year anniversary of the Iraq war, didn't we? Mission accomplished, right? That's why we have to move onto Iran next. The drums of war are beating louder - you can hear them in the media, a low rumbling pounding through the now daily headlines about Iran. Sure, Iran says it wants to talk, but this administration doesn't talk; it just bombs.

We'll get slaughtered if we go to war with Iran and our torn and tattered troops. Only a draft will meet the needs.

Google bomb

Bill Napoli

Pass it on.

HT: Ayn Clouter

Happy Paddy's Day!

In Ireland and half of New York, Boston, and Chicago, people are off work and out celebrating. Meanwhile in DC, it's business as usual. Sigh...

So I've sort of described my first Paddy's Day in Dublin. My second Paddy's Day in the city is a little blurry, but there are parts of it I remember quite clearly. It was 2000, I was living in Ireland at the time, working as an intern for Glencree Center for Reconciliation, a conflict resolution center located about 45 minutes south of Dublin City in the Wicklow Mountains near Enniskerry. As I was the Yank, Claire, the center's facilitator, invited me to hang out with her friends on Paddy's Day, so I arrived at her house about 11am and we headed out to Searson's on Upper Baggott Street, fortunate enough to get a table. A lot of Guinness flowed, and Claire's cell phone drowned in a river of the black stuff that night, dying a happy death.

Now that I think about it, that day was a blur. We sat at Searson's until about six and then went somewhere else, though I'm not sure or can't remember where. But I have a very distinct memory of Claire's friend wearing a tri-color Cat-in-the-Hat hat and posing for a photo for the Irish Times. Thing is, though, that the guy's father was a prominent politician in Ulster for the British side of things, a proud Unionist, and that photo appeared on the front page of the Times the next day. I always wondered what his father had to say about that.

(Photo is of Irish PM Bertie Ahern giving bushie a pot of shamrocks.)

James Spader for President!

Boston Legal - by far the best show on television. Once again, Alan Shore delivers one of those incredible monologues that make the show so damn good, this coming from a person who doesn't really watch much television. This one is about the apathy of Americans when it comes to the Constitutional abuses of this administration. The video is a little choppy but the speech is well worth hearing. It's just too bad we can't have politicians with that amount of passion.

Every day is a lovely day for a Guinness

I hate when Paddy's Day is on a Friday or Saturday, because you get more amateur drunks than you would normally and the pubs are packed to the point where you can't breathe and people taller than you are spilling beer on your head. There are too few Irish pubs in the DC area, and most of the ones that do exist aren't very good, with bartenders who pour a full pint of Guinness in one pour and leave the kegs on tap until they are empty, even if it takes a month to empty them and everything that resembled freshness has long since departed.

I am thinking back to the time when I spent my first Paddy's Day in Dublin. I was studying in Luxembourg at the time, and since it was on a Tuesday, I received special permission to miss class, as I could justify needing to go to Dublin for a project I was working on for my core class. The way the program in Lux is set up is that all students take one core class worth six hours total, and two of those hours are for one major research project, which is why I "had to go" to Dublin.

The class was an educational psychology class I took because the intelligent but socially retarded professor they had hired for the political theory course had the power to make boredom excruciating to even the dullest dork. I had taken his political philosophy course in the first semester, where we had to take a week long trip through Flanders and Holland to study, well, I couldn't even tell you, because it was all so disorganized and disconnected that none of us knew what the hell was going on. The classic line was, "Who is Christophe Plantin?" spoken at the end of the trip after we had apparently been studying the impact of this famous printer all week. This professor was so bad, he had to cart in beer and wine on the last day of class when we were filling out evaluations, but I don't think it helped. He was not invited back the next year.

Anyway, the professor of the ed-psych class was brilliant and everyone raved about her during the first semester, so I chose to ignore my major for the second semester and take her class. She ended up being one of my top three favorite professors, if not the favorite, and had a profound effect on my life that I have never quite understood, but I have to say it was the best class I ever took. It was an odd combination of literature, history, and psychology, where we studied the psychological effects on adolescents in various social situations, including war. For our week long trip, we went to Terezin, the "model" concentration camp where the Nazis took all of the Red Cross workers to prove that the prisoners were being treated well, and no one had to ask who Christophe Plantin was. The museum at the camp had some disturbing children's art work from the time of incarceration, and to this day I wonder if any of those kids became serial killers on account of the psychological damage they incurred in those camps.

Now, for my research project, I chose to write a short story rather than a research paper. This, of course, had to be approved by her, but she welcomed the idea since I was studying for a year and had already done a research project in the previous semester. I figured that since we were reading stories about troubled adolescents (like one of my personal favorites Catcher in the Rye,) I could write my own story based on research into adolescent psychology. I chose Ireland as the setting for a number of reasons, the first being that I had fallen in love with Dublin and wanted every excuse to go back numerous times. The story was about an American girl whose family moves to Ireland and how she deals with the different culture and her preconceived stereotypes of the Irish.

So I found myself going up to Dublin on the Friday before Paddy's Day, celebrating the pre-Paddy festivities and doing very little work on the project. This was in '98, the prime of the Celtic Tiger, so huge, over-marketed Paddy's day celebrations were still relatively new to the city. They tried to dye the Liffey green but the muck was too thick and it didn't take. Back then, you couldn't even get t-shirts that said "St. Patrick's Day, Dublin 1998" but I am sure the tourist shops are filled with them these days. I've seen them over here on the backs of college kids on occassion.

My point in writing all of this is that these things are as vivid to my mind as they were back then, which makes it incredible that nearly a decade has passed since they happened. Time is something we can never get back, you know? No amount of human progress will ever triumph in our battle against time. We incarcerate ourselves in offices while the sun rages on through the window, if we are lucky enough to have a window, never able to get back the hours we spend in our confinement. We should be out celebrating each breath we take, but some floozy had to go and eat an apple and condemn us to a life of labor. (I'm speaking metaphorically, of course.)

To me, Paddy's Day is an excuse to celebrate life, friends, good times and passions and joy. You don't have to be Irish to partake in the festivities. I am an Irish-German-American (with an unfortunate bit of English) who grew up with certain Paddy's Day traditions, but it's a great time of year to celebrate regardless of your ethnic heritage - the end of winter, the solstice, Lent, Purim, March Madness, Spring Training - use whatever excuse you can come up with, but just take a second, draw in a deep breath, and appreciate the fact that you've been given the chance to do so.

If you read all of this, you deserve a medal. By the way, I earned an A for the story.

Happy Paddy's Day Eve Eve Eve

I guess I've deblogged in the past couple of weeks, haven't I? I've lost interest in the bickering people who leave comments just to be jerks. I could write, actually, I have written about how beautiful the weather was and got some hateful idiocy about global warming. You can't rationalize with these people - their views of the world are confined to that narrow little mindset they have, and they exist only to be rude and mean. I should be excited because campaign season is about to heat up, but I just can't get into it. I'm not looking forward to the right's lies and distortions. I'm not looking foward to swiftboating and mudslinging. I've become so disgusted with politics that I don't really care right now. I'm not excited about any candidates, don't have any interest in joining campaigns, and couldn't care less if the masses rot in their own ignorance. This is a first for me - normally during spring I feel so alive and excited about life, but I've become so jaded with the injustice that is swallowing this globe, people supporting the torture of human beings, war for war's sake, the idiocy of Israel/Palestine, dictatorships, poverty, the horrible storms we've been hit with over the past few years, American Idol, corporate greed, port deals, Halliburton, bigotry, huge disparities in wealth, death, destruction, George W. Bush, Christian(TM) hatred, self-righteousness, the list goes on.

I've been working on a piece about how I don't think there is a clash of civilizations going on but a global clash against the right and the left, but I haven't had much intellectual ambition to finish it. I can't focus at work, never want to even be there, can barely stand the thought of even going. One of my favorite days of the year is Friday and I can't even get excited for that. I'm in a rut, I need a change, something exciting, something that can bring back my natural electric curiosity about the world and the people who are forced to live together on it, but what is it that can do it?

Maybe this whole year is going to be this way, the last year of my twenties, none of my goals accomplished with nine months until the deadline I had set for myself back when I was ambitious and focused and youthfully naive. Why am I writing all of this here for public viewing and subject to hateful comments from the soulless? I don't really know.

Throw out Republican Lite

Please support Ned Lamont for Senate. Lieberman has to go.

"I am running for the US Senate because Connecticut deserves a Senator who will stand up to the Bush administration, whose policies are so harmful to our state and our country. Connecticut deserves a Senator who will turn back judicial appointees outside of the mainstream, who will fight for affordable universal health care, and who will challenge the status quo in Washington DC."

Happy Purim!

Celebrate by committing acts of war!

Israeli Forces Seize Palestinian Jail in Jericho

The operation, coming two weeks before the election in Israel, was among the most aggressive Israeli incursions into a Palestinian town in months. Israeli forces surrounded the city to prevent entry, set up checkpoints to keep people from reaching the nearest hospital and blew down walls as they prepared to raid the jail, which is housed in a local Palestinian military building called Moqata.

Bulldozers then started to tear down the building.

Tsk, tsk. This is a shameful act that should be condemned by Western governments, especially those who are always preaching "democracy."

I'm so sick of this, so sick of this mess that perpetuates nonsensical violence, so sick of both sides being equally wrong but one side being seen as more right than the other, so sick of this mess that started the whole terrorist movement in the first place. I remember sitting on the Jordanian side of the Dead Sea one very hot January day, staring across the water at Israel and contemplating this land which is the basis of all of our problems. The warmth and the sunshine were the only things that felt alive as I sat there that day; the place was spiritually dead, the air as heavy as my despondent heart. I think God abandoned that land long ago, for a Just god would not allow such atrocities, such hatred, such utter disregard for the sanctity and pricelessness of human life.

Blame Canada!

Isaac Hayes quit South Park because of that episode about Scientology when Tom Cruise wouldn't come out of the closet. (Watch it here!) Hayes says "There is a place in this world for satire, but there is a time when satire ends and intolerance and bigotry towards religious beliefs of others begins." Funny how he never said a thing about the anti-Christian, anti-Jew, and anti-Muslim "bigotry" on the show.

Although the obsession with flatulence can nearly ruin a good show, South Park does come up with some witty satire about American society. But - outside of his bias, Hayes does have a point. Often the show seems to be more bigoted than satirical. See, it's satire when they are pointing out the hypocritical nature of the American Christian Right, but it's not satire when they make fun of Jesus. That's just offensive for the sake of being offensive.

I'm not inclined to believe that the South Park creators are "brilliant"; they are simply using exaggeration to point out what is already obvious to the half-educated. The show is geared toward the lowest common denominator in my not-so-humble opinion. No wonder the right loves it so much.

DC, too

Genocide committer dead

Slobodan Milosevic, 1941 - 2006

Have fun in Hell.

Typical rightwinger

Charges Loom for Italian Leader

The Son of Man hides his face

Oh, the joy of the first real spring-like day, sixty-five and clear and dry and all around wonderful!

It was a bit of a bizarre day for me, since my organization had a "de-junk" day, a day when we got to throw out all of the crap we had been accumulating for years. Permission to wear jeans was granted, and they fed us pizza, too, even ordering more when we ran out. I'm not a jeans person; I have one pair, but because we could wear them to work, I did.

Who decided that everyone had to wear suits to conduct business? What purpose does it serve? (Those who follow everything without question will no doubt think that my inquiry is some "leftist hate" or some similar nonsense.) It's kind of commie, if you think about it. It's the uniform of the Free-market Party, you know? Conform or else! But then hey, it would be appropriate, for we are pretty much heading toward dictatorship, according to conservative former Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.

I don't know. It just seems like such a waste of life to be told you have to stay inside a stuffy, drab office on a perfect day. But then again, most people waste their lives away, so they don't care.

Where's Osama?

"Party leaders, for example, have yet to decide whether Democrats should focus on a sharply negative campaign against President Bush and the Republicans, by jumping on debacles such as the administration's handling of the Dubai port deal -- or stress their own priorities and values."

Why not have both? Yes, America is tired of negative political campaigns, but if you point out the obvious and balance it with actual values and ideas, they will respond.

Why not say, "Democrats don't believe that war is the answer? We believe in negotiation and compromise. The path that the gops have brought us down has led to a civil war in Iraq and instability in the entire Middle East. That isn't what America is about. It's time to stand up for security and peace and say no to unjust war. We will withdrawal our troops from Iraq and strategically redeploy them into other parts of the region so that they can be ready to go when a real threat arrives. Oh, and remember that Osama guy? We're gonna make him the focus of our security efforts."

If you do it right and don't distort and spin too much, you can have the negatives. Just don't forget the ideas.

Snicker...

The world is a small place, 9 1/4 inches in circumference

International competition in sports could be the key to world peace.

Ok, maybe the statement is a bit fantastical, said in the company of pink elephants and lotus leaves and whatever else one can lose oneself in, but think about it. Isn't the idea of sports teams from countries who hate each other competing peacefully very utopian? As if games can occupy the place in man's heart where war sometimes is?

The World Baseball Classic is currently underway, the first real World Cup-like international baseball tournament, and it really shows how international baseball has become. These are Major League players, not amateurs, 16 teams from six continents doing something other than dropping bombs on each other. (Although there were a few beanballs today.)

The most interesting team in the tournament is probably Cuba, who had to get special permission from the State Defartment before participating and who was denied entry on the first request. El Commendant or whatever they call their beloved brutal asshole for a dictator gave them a special send off party, daring to quote Che when his regime has no ounce of Che in it and never has.

My theory is that Castro's whole beef with the US stems from his failed attempts to make the Majors as a pitcher, as he tried out before real integration took place and more than likely he just wasn't good enough.

FYI: The US team got spanked today by Canada. Good game, though.

Bravo

Ray McGovern and 15 others took action today in the halls of Congress. The 16 donned orange jumpsuits similar to those worn by detainees at Guantánamo Bay. They wore gags over their mouths decorated with one word - torture. Not another word needed to be said as they walked the halls of Congress. McGovern, a 27-year veteran of the CIA, also returned his Intelligence Commendation Award medallion which was given to him for "especially commendable service." He delivered the medal to Congressman Pete Hoekstra along with the letter below. --smg/TO


I Do Not Wish to Be Associated With Torture
By Ray McGovern
t r u t h o u t | Letter

Thursday 02 March 2006

Hon. Pete Hoekstra, Chair
House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence
Washington, DC

Dear Congressman Hoekstra:

As a matter of conscience, I am returning the Intelligence Commendation Award medallion given me for "especially commendable service" during my 27-year career in CIA. The issue is torture, which inhabits the same category as rape and slavery - intrinsically evil. I do not wish to be associated, however remotely, with an agency engaged in torture.

Reports in recent years that CIA personnel were torturing detainees were highly disturbing. Confirmation of a sort came last fall, when CIA Director Porter Goss and Dick Cheney - dubbed by the Washington Post "Vice President for Torture" - descended on Sen. John McCain to demand that the CIA be exempted from his amendment's ban on torture. Subsequent reports implicated agency personnel in several cases of prisoner abuse in Iraq, including a few in which detainees died during interrogation.

The obeisance of CIA directors George Tenet and Porter Goss in heeding illegal White House directives has done irreparable harm to the CIA and the country - not to mention those tortured and killed. That you, as Chair of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, show more deference to the White House than dedication to your oversight responsibilities under the Constitution is another profound disappointment. How can you and your counterpart, Sen. Pat Roberts, turn a blind eye to torture - letting some people get away, literally, with murder - and square that with your conscience?

If German officials who were ordered to do such things in the 1930s had spoken out early and loudly enough, the German people might have been alerted to the atrocities being perpetrated in their name and tried harder to stop them. When my grandchildren ask, "What did you do, Grandpa, to stop the torture," I want to be able to tell them that I tried to honor my oath, taken both as an Army officer and an intelligence officer, to defend the Constitution of the United States - and that I not only spoke out strongly against the torture, but also sought a symbolic way to dissociate myself from it.

We Americans have become accustomed to letting our institutions do our sinning for us. I abhor the corruption of the CIA in the past several years, believe it to be beyond repair, and do not want my name on any medallion associated with it. Please destroy this one.

Yours truly,
Ray McGovern

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ray McGovern works for Tell the Word, the publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in Washington, DC. He was an analyst at the CIA for 27 years, and is on the Steering Group of VIPS.

I hear the lions roaring...

"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in a flag, carrying a cross." ~ Sinclair Lewis

State bill proposes Christianity be Missouri’s official religion

Missouri legislators in Jefferson City considered a bill that would name Christianity the state's official "majority" religion.

House Concurrent Resolution 13 has is pending in the state legislature.

Many Missouri residents had not heard about the bill until Thursday.

Karen Aroesty of the Anti-defamation league, along with other watch-groups, began a letter writing and email campaign to stop the resolution.

The resolution would recognize "a Christian god," and it would not protect minority religions, but "protect the majority's right to express their religious beliefs."

The resolution also recognizes that, "a greater power exists," and only Christianity receives what the resolution calls, "justified recognition."

State representative David Sater of Cassville in southwestern Missouri, sponsored the resolution, but he has refused to talk about it on camera or over the phone.

KMOV also contacted Gov. Matt Blunt's office to see where he stands on the resolution, but he has yet to respond.

"protect the majority's right to express their religious beliefs."

It's time to start the lion feedings again and show these idiots what real persecution is. Let's burn the churches and force them to hold their services in secret rooms! Let's cover their bodies with tar and light them on fire to be used as torches for our garden parties! Let's throw stones at them as they pass us on the streets!

Sarcasm aside, I think too much freedom has eroded their understanding of what persecution is. They spit on the graves of the real martyrs who have died for their beliefs, those under Roman rule, under Soviet rule, under Chinese rule, under Nazi rule, Christians in Sudan, Armenians, Assyrians, Maronites, Copts, Dhimmis, etc.

Please, stop with the persecution nonsense. You have more freedom to worship as you please in this country than anywhere else in the world. Rejoice in that freedom; don't take it for granted.

And the award goes to...who cares?

Sometimes I wonder if I am the only one in the world who doesn't care about the Oscars. Is this true? This is the fakest night of the year in human interaction, a night of self-congratulations and arrogance. I used to be a pretty big film fan until I grew tired of the same old crap that Hollywood has been producing. I haven't seen a single movie this year, although I wouldn't mind seeing Munich, Syriana, or Good Night and Good Luck, and I've only seen two films that have come out in the past three years: Hotel Rwanda and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, two excellent films that I do not hesitate to recommend.

WaPo had a decent article on the social issue aspect of this year's Oscars. It is an interesting topic to ponder - how much influence do films have on public opinion? Sadly, probably not much. The problem is that the people who need to see these films the most are the ones who don't watch them, instead choosing such plebian flicks as Deuce Bigalow and Dirty Love, which, by the way, earned a few Razzies this year. So while Munich is a far cry from the "Israelis are always the good guys" attitude that the flagwavers have, they won't learn this because they haven't gone out to see it.

For the record, I did try to see it a couple of times, but no close theaters were showing it in the places I was. Once I went to Dupont Circle to see it, but they were showing Brokeback Mountain five hundred times a day. Not that there's anything wrong with that. ;)

I'm just going to sit back, listen to the Arctic Monkeys, and read a book. Maybe I'll pick up Catcher in the Rye since tonight is Phony Night...

D'OH!

In a contest between Americans' knowledge of "The Simpsons" and what they know about the First Amendment, Bart and Homer win hands down.

About 1 in 4 Americans can name more than one of the five freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment (freedom of speech, religion, press, assembly and petition for redress of grievances.) But more than half of Americans can name at least two members of the fictional cartoon family, according to a survey. The study by the new McCormick Tribune Freedom Museum found that 22% of Americans could name all five Simpson family members, compared with just 1 in 1,000 people who could name all five First Amendment freedoms.

Only one person in the entire sample group could name all five First Amenment Freedoms? And only 22 could name all five of the Simpsons?

The survey found that while 69% of people could name freedom of speech as a First Amendment right, just under 1 out of 4 people could name freedom of religion. Only 11% knew freedom of the press, 1 in 10 could name freedom of assembly and 1% named freedom to petition for redress of grievances, the survey found.

What's wrong with the other 31% who can't name free speech? Are they those members on the right like Ann Coulter who don't believe in freedom of speech, therefore it does not exist in their minds' eyes?

The survey found more people could name the three "American Idol" judges than First Amendment rights and were more likely to remember popular advertising slogans.

Sieg Heil to Corporate America!

It also found people misidentified First Amendment rights. About 1 in 5 people thought the right to own a pet was protected, and 38% said they believed the right against self-incrimination -- commonly known as "Taking the Fifth" -- was a First Amendment right, the survey found.

Is this the America we are supposed to be proud of, an America who cares more about television than the greatest document ever written by man, an America who is so freaking stupid that they think the right to own a pet is guaranteed in the Constitution? They spit on this document while they sit on their fat asses watching their inane television shows. No, these people are not Americans; they do not deserve the freedoms they take for granted. I am ashamed to be an American if this is what being an American has become.

For the record, I like the Simpsons. I just have the ability to comprehend that respecting life and liberty is much more important.